Felix's Rains Could Wreak Election Havoc

GUATEMALA CITY — Election observers warned that heavy rains from the remnants of Hurricane Felix could disrupt Sunday's fiercely contested presidential election, already considered a logistical headache.

Although the one-time Category 5 Felix broke up over the mountains of Honduras on Wednesday, officials worry its rains could cause chaos in the highlands and mountains of Guatemala.

Election Watch 2007, a nonpartisan, pro-democracy watchdog group, urged election officials to consider contingency plans — including suspending the election — if mudslides and floods make voting impossible in rural areas.

Many of the communities likely to be affected by rain are also suffering from an unprecedented level of election violence. So far this campaign season, 43 candidates have been slain, most at the hands of powerful drug cartels, observers believe.

The downpours coincide with Guatemala's experiment in voting decentralization: for the first time, voting booths will be set up in every community with more than 500 registered voters. In past elections, rural villagers had to trek to the equivalent of a county seat to cast their ballots.

In practice, this means voting will take place in some of the hemisphere's remotest villages, many connected to the outside world by dirt roads.

Mudslides and flooding could delay election results for days and could call into question the election's legitimacy, experts warned.

"This is explosive," said Víctor Gálvez, director of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Guatemala and member of Election Watch 2007. "In years past, election results were delayed two or three days because they were changing the results. The ghosts of the past remain strong in the minds of the people."

Rain from Hurricane Felix drenched Honduras on Wednesday. The storm killed at least nine people in Nicaragua as it made landfall on Tuesday.

Sunday's presidential election in Guatemala is largely between Otto Pérez, a retired general who promises a "strong hand" against organized crime, and Álvaro Colom, who finished second to President Oscar Berger in 2003. Polls show the two front-runners are headed to a Nov. 4 runoff. The nation is also electing a host of federal legislators and local mayors.

On Tuesday, election officials rushed election materials to remote areas in advance of Felix. But observers say that even without the hurricane, the Guatemalan Congress erred when it set the election date for September, the heart of the rainy season.

"The date certainly should be (reconsidered)," said Manfredo Marroquín, director of Citizen Action and a member of Election Watch 2007. "We can't be depending on the weather to see if there's going to be elections or not."